Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and I'm your host. And today we'll be talking about generating happiness and we're gonna do a little bit of a different format. I'm gonna talk just for a few minutes and then we're going to do a meditation because I'm gonna talk about how we can access happiness from within. Has nothing to do with any circumstances. So let's just talk briefly about maybe the way we've been feeling happy. There was another episode about happiness and authenticity. And happiness. And excitement. And so you can look back at those episodes, maybe I'll put them here, is excitement, healthy and happiness, uh, versus authenticity. You could take a look at that. That's like the intellectual overview of this. But what I wanna talk about is how to generate happiness from within. How can I access that beautiful pearl or that beautiful flower inside of me? And for that, we need to look at, I'm gonna say nature. Let's look at nature and look at, maybe another thing we can look at is a baby. And I've used this example before, but let's gimme, let me give the examples quickly. So if I'm standing in a room with a bunch of adults and somebody walks in with an infant, something happens. When the infant comes into the room, everybody becomes happy and curious, and we're all doing baby talk, and I wanna see the baby's foot and I wanna feel connected. Oh, the eyes are open, the eyes are closed. How much does it weigh? Blah, blah, blah. Like, there's a lot going on where you forget everything else, isn't it? You forget everything else. And I am totally happy and totally engaged in interacting with this. I'm gonna say pure innocent being. This being that can't talk, doesn't even know it has a body really, and it's presence. That little soul that, not a little soul, it's a soul in a little body, but that soul's presence, the innocence creates such a feeling of happiness and connectedness. And now for nature, we can look at nature too. Like I was walking this morning, we have a lake near the house and I'm walking around the lake and I had shared this before, but there's a little bird that it's not a little bird, it's like a medium sized bird. And I guess they go swimming to catch to eat on the bottom of the lake and they dive down and their feathers get wet. So this one bird comes to the side and stands out with the wings out like this on the side of the lake drying its feathers. And I really like that bird. I used to wonder, what is that bird thinking? Is that bird just being so peaceful and it's just doing its thing? And today there were about seven of them doing that, and I had never seen that before. And I just felt so delighted in myself. Just to see it, you know, remember when you were a child and we learned about all the animals, and there's something about nature, there's something about innocence. There's something about the way we were when we were young children, and think about when you're with children, you have to kind of downshift into that. You won't say downshift, but shift into that innocent kind of way of being. You have to use a limited vocabulary. You have to be kind of emotionally available, creating an emotional safety zone for the child all the time so that they feel okay. Plus, you're watching, right? You're watching to make sure they're safe. So I'm gonna assert that part of what we can do for ourselves to create the environment for happiness to come for forward is to start to look at those things that we do for children. And what is the thing? Nature doesn't have language either, by the way. So there's no language, when we're with children, there's a kind of a fascination of being with nature and we love animals and things like that. And there's also think about when you're a child, you're not really thinking about yourself. You're not really thinking about anybody else, but you're still interacting. So there's some bit of now we would use the word detachment, but there's some bit of natural harmony that we have. So generating happiness on one hand, I'm gonna say, is creating a harmonious energy. Being here, being alive. Sometimes I say happiness comes from just being alive, and we'll do a meditation on that in a moment. So the other way of being happy is to have self-respect, like happy, like pride, pure pride. Not pride like ego, but pure pride. And that makes you feel like self-respect. It's a different kind of happy, right? If I do things and, and I know that it's helping others and I feel good about myself and I recognize the value of what I'm doing and I start to feel good about myself and that feeling of happiness is kind of like a self-contained self-respect. I believe that's another kind of happiness. Another kind of happiness and spirituality could be the being with God or recognizing that I'm a soul and I am related to in relationship with the Higher Power, the Supreme Soul, God, that also can generate a feeling of value. So I just described three different kinds of happiness. So there's, you know, the happiness of being alive, there's the happiness of pure pride and self-respect, and there's the happiness of feeling the value of just who I am as a soul, and that I am a unique, powerful, if you wanna say child of God, meaning that my relationship is reflective with God. You know, the parent becomes a parent when the child is there, the child becomes a child because the parent is there. So there's a kind of a self or co-creation occurring. So this thing with the soul and God, there's a feeling of that happening and that brings a deep sense of value to the soul to us. So those are three examples of internal happiness. So I'd like to do a meditation now, and we will explore all three of those in a meditation and try to get that experience for myself. So sitting quietly, just let your body relax. You can either close your eyes. Or look at me. Look right here in the center of my forehead. There's a point of light behind me there, but just imagine that there's a point of light right here in the center of the forehead right here, that you're looking at a soul speaking through this body and that you are a soul as well. So as I am relaxing the body. I begin to be aware that although there may be sounds, maybe even the sound of my own breathing, there's also silence. So I begin to gently and naturally listen to the silence. Just let the body relax, breathe. Remember the star in the center of the forehead. That's the soul. I am the soul. My nature is peace. Allow myself to feel the very nature of my being as a soul. I imagine myself in a world of light, the soul is suspended in a world of light. So imagine that everything else is gone just for a moment, and I am soul sparkling in a world of light. I am a perfect, unique point of living consciousness. There is no other soul like me. And as I let myself feel this gentle peace and silence, I now imagine. That I the soul, am moving into a brand new body, a brand new world, a brand new life. I'm still me. And as I come into, let's say I awaken into a 5-year-old body again. Let's say I'm five years old again, I. But the world that I'm in is beautiful and full of nature and peace, and the weather is beautiful. I'm looking at the animals. See if you can generate a feeling. This feeling of being happy, just being alive. I'm alive. I have a body, I have a family. I have the world and nature, I have the senses, I have, I'm able to move and express myself, so just keep it very, very simple. And see if you can feel the essence of the happiness of being alive. The soul doesn't need anything else. Now fast forward. Into an older body development scenario. Now maybe I'm in having a 20 or 30 or 40-year-old body, 50-year-old body, and now in that state I'm able to do things in the world. I'm able to help people. I'm able to have good feelings towards people. I'm able to do charity. I'm able to. Give things when needed to others, and those actions allow me to feel a pride within myself. I feel good about that action and that makes me feel like a good person. I feel good inside. There are not a lot of words. It's an intuitive feeling of self respect and self-honoring. And now fast forward again, and imagine you're in a stage of life where you're looking at things in a spiritual way. That you're looking to get in touch with the spiritual truth of life and your relationship with all of humanity and with God, and imagine that you are now getting in touch with that very subtle essence, full feeling of value. I am the child of God. I am part of this world family. I am unique and valuable and very much loved and cared for by the world. And just feel what that feels like. And now take one more moment and go back into complete silence. Just looking at the star. And now gently bring your attention back to your body, back to the room. Come forward into your senses. Move your hands and feet a little bit, your fingers and toes, move around a little. Come forward into your natural waking state, and we're back. I hope you were able to have an experience there. I would recommend playing this again, maybe using this again and practicing. If we practice those essence full experiences on a regular basis, they will be begin to help us to resolve and move away from some of these other states that we find ourselves in. Like sorrow or irritation or whatever it is that I'm feeling. If I begin to feel the happiness of just being alive, the innocent happiness, the happiness of self-respect and the happiness of being God's child, these all can help me feel I mean, what else would I need? So I hope you practice, and I hope you found value in that. I'll leave it there. Our slogan is Heal, empower, and Serve, and all of these episodes now where we're going more into experience and practicing these subtle exercises, that's all part of service. We're generating this new energy back into the world. So thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next time. Take care.
